Indian Space Research Organisation

Base station on moon is the next dream: ISRO chief

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Indian space mission’s next dream is to set up a base station on the moon so that space vehicles for onward journey to the Mars can be assembled and launched from there, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), G. Madhavan Nair, has said.

Addressing students of ISRO’s Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) at their annual celebrations here on Friday, Dr. Nair asked them to have this dream in their mind. He asked them to think big, not just retrace the path already trekked by space science and technology, but look to where the future beckoned.

“You are going to be with the ISRO for 30 years and more. Think beyond what we have already done. We want you to think of air-breathing rockets, India having a base station on the moon, India emerging as a space power,” he told them after describing how happy he was to see the IIST really coming of age, to become an institution that would in future drive the Indian space mission.

Earlier, the students gave a video narration of what all they had done in their institution during the course of the last one year (the celebrations were in connection with the second anniversary of the IIST).

Referring to the activities, both curricular and extra-curricular, Dr. Nair said the institution, which now had the former President, Abdul Kalam, as the Chancellor, was in the process of evolving a hitherto untried method of grooming scientists in the country. The students here were in the thick of what was happening in the ISRO and its organisations in the country.

New campus, courses

IIST Director B.N. Suresh said the institution would shift to a new campus at Valiyamala (in Thiruvananthapuram district) by August this year. The IIST had introduced Ph.D. programmes in various disciplines of space science and postgraduate courses were being launched during the course of the year.

Chief Secretary K.J. Mathew, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre Director K. Radhakrishnan and several top scientists from ISRO’s other institutions attended the celebrations.